Men fit for gold

AUSTRALIAN hockey coach Barry Dancer is not known as a man who takes risks, but his decision to gamble on the fitness of Nathan Eglington has paid enormous dividends.

The Kookaburras advanced to their third successive Commonwealth Games gold medal play-off yesterday with a predictable 6-0 defeat of Malaysia in the semi-final.

Australia will play Pakistan in the final. Pakistan defeated England 2-1 in last night's semi-final.

While Eglington failed to trouble the technical bench, he produced another busy performance in the midfield, which included setting up the final goal and setting the platform for the victory.

While he was happy with his efforts over the past 10 days, which included three goals against England, he said he was greatly relieved as he could well have been reduced to the status of a spectator.

Along with team-mate Robbie Hammond, Eglington was troubled by a nagging injury and they were only cleared to play in the Games on the first morning.

"I sort of had to convince Barry that I was right to play,'' Eglington confessed.

"Robbie and I were both doing our own programs and I had to do a sufficient amount of running to prove to Barry that I could get through six games of international hockey.

"I didn't have to plead with Baz, but it was always in the back of my mind that he might send me home.

"I was thinking ?please don't do that, I'll get it right' and thankfully I did. It was always confident and now you wouldn't know I had an injury.''

The Kookas warmed up for tomorrow's final with an impressive hammering of Malaysia.

As expected the Asians based their game plan on total defence and it took the Aussies until the stroke of half-time to break the barrier.

As the heat and the pressure took its toll on the Malaysians, Australia opened the scoring floodgates with five second-half goals.

Eglington said he had no preference as to an opponent in the final.

"No it doesn't matter as we are playing good enough hockey to win,'' he said.

There has been some tension between Pakistan and Australia recently, but Eglington said that would not be revisited tomorrow.

While the Aussies will receive a wild reception when they run out, Pakistan captain Mohammed Saqlain will be the villain.

Saqlain remains the subject of an investigation in to how his stick fractured the jaw of Aussie striker Craig Victory in a tournament last year. Victory recovered too late to make the team, and while the Pakistani is still to serve the ban, he has played in Melbourne. But Eglington said there was no bad blood.